‘’Tis your turn now!’ Jacques whispered to Madeleine, who was feeling terribly conscious of her mask and six patches. However, Madame Pilou abruptly changed the subject by turning to Madeleine and asking her what she thought of Paris.
‘I think it is furiously beautiful,’ she answered, at which Madame Pilou went off into a bellow of laughter.
‘Jésus! Hark to the little Précieuse with her “furiously”! So “furiously” has reached the provinces, has it? Little Madeleine will be starting her “ruelle” next! Ha! Ha!’ Madeleine blushed crimson, Jacques looked distressed, Robert Pilou gave a sudden wild whoop of laughter, then stopped dead, looked anxiously round, and pulled a long face again.
‘That is news to me,’ Monsieur Troqueville began intelligently; ‘is “furiously” much in use with the Précieuses?’ but Madame Troqueville, who was very indignant that Madeleine should be made fun of, broke in hurriedly with, ‘I think my daughter learned it in Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s Grand Cyrus; she liked it rarely; we read it through together from beginning to end.’
‘Well, I fear me, I cannot confess to the same assiduity, and that though Mademoiselle de Scudéry brought me the volumes herself,’ said Madame Pilou. ‘I promised her I would read it if she gave me her word that that swashbuckler of a brother of hers should not come to the house for six months, but there he was that very evening, come to find out what I thought of the description of the battle of Rocroy! Are you a lover of reading, my child?’ suddenly turning to Madeleine.
‘No, ’tis most distasteful to me,’ she answered emphatically, to her mother’s complete stupefaction.
‘But Madeleine——’ she began. Madame Pilou, however, cut her short with ‘Quite right, quite right, my child. You’ll never learn anything worth the knowing out of books. I have lived nearly eighty years, and my Missal and Æsop his fables are near the only two books I have ever read. What you can’t learn from life itself is not worth the learning——’
‘But Madeleine has grown into such an excessive humour for books, that she wholly addicts herself to them!’ cried Madame Troqueville indignantly. She was determined that an old barbarian like Madame Pilou should not flatter herself she had anything in common with her Madeleine. But Madame Pilou was too busy talking herself to hear her.
‘Mademoiselle de Scudéry is writing a new romance, she tells me (it’s all her, you know; Conrart tells me that all the writing in it that tedious, prolix, bombastic fop of a brother does is to put his name to the title page!) and she says that I am to be portrayed in it. Poor Robert is in a sad taking; he thinks you cannot be both in a romance and the Book of Life!’ Robert Pilou looked at his mother with the eyes of an anxious dog, and she smiled at him encouragingly, and assured him that there were many devotees described in romances.